Simpsons Did It!: “The Last Barfighter”

So, this is how they’re gonna end season 32?  With a John Wick parody complete with a cameo by Ian McShane?

Sure.  Why not?

After a cold open showing Moe going to a secret place, and I knew it was Moe just by his posture before he took his motorcycle helmet off, we cut to…Bart and Milhouse unable to get into the studio audience for Krusty’s show.  So, they go to see the Spanish-language equivalent which was Bumblebee Man’s talk show.  Milhouse speaks Spanish.  So does the rest of the audience.  Bart?  Not so much.  Milhouse won’t even translate because of the cultural differences that would make the jokes funny.

Then again, Bart’s having no idea what was going on helps him out when he’s randomly selected as a contestant for a game.  Who can hold some stuff in their mouths longest by not laughing at whatever the old man in the diaper is saying?  Bart can since he doesn’t know.  Then he has his pick of the prizes.  Will  Bart take the vacuum cleaner?  The glass skull that made everyone in the audience cross themselves?  The motorbike?  Bart says it’s an easy choice.

He goes with the glass skull.  It has a stopper.  See, it’s really a tequila bottle, but Bart didn’t care about that.  Homer does.  He’s always wanted to drink something out of a bottle that wasn’t shaped like a bottle.  Bart…won’t share.

Homer finally cracks when the skull seems to be taunting him in Spanish.  Granted. Homer doesn’t speak Spanish either, but he knows taunting when he hears it.  So, he slips into Bart’s room to see Bart sleeping with the skull bottle and switches the bottle for Maggie.

So, off to Moe’s to share the tequila with his drinking buddies, namely Lenny, Carl, and Barney.  Oh, and then the guys decide to share with Moe, letting him be a drinker instead of a bartender.  That…is not supposed to happen.  And for a good reason.

See, Moe gets drunk just like the others, and Moe is the worst kind of drunk: an honest drunk!  He knows all the guys secrets!  Heck, he knows secrets for everyone in town, like how Patty and Selma file their taxes with the IRS as one person and how Mayor Quimby is also a mayor for another town!

Wait, how does two people filing as one help?  Wouldn’t that just put them in a higher tax bracket?

Never mind.  See, Moe let’s slip that bartenders have their own bar, and they spill secrets there to stay sane.

That gets Moe in trouble.  He’s summoned to…the Confidential!  Run by the mysterious Artemis (McShane), he’s forced to give up his bar.  He can no longer dispense drinks.  Oh, and the guys are “cut off”.

That’s bad.  And they don’t even get their choice of toppings.

See, the collective of bartenders has a concoction called “anti-booze” that, once injected, makes alcohol consumption terrible.  Like, cartoon reactions involving all kinds of awful symptoms, and thankfully, we never see the “hurricane vomiting”.

But before we got there, Moe went off to warn the guys who weren’t happy to see him right away.  Moe finds them at the Nuclear Plant but, uh, Barney doesn’t work there.  Barney gets a jab during a video call which gets the other three to run off with Moe.  And since Springfield is full of people who hate their jobs, there are a lot of bartenders.  Lenny and Carl get jumped in an alley, and while Homer makes it home, Dr. Hibbert came by for dinner.

And he tended bar to work his way through medical school.

So, Homer can no longer drink.  That actually makes Marge, Lisa, and Bart very happy.

Huh.  That could be a major change on this show.  Not long after that, Homer is doing well.  He got a promotion.  He and Marge are closer than ever.  He’s an attentive father.  Heck, all the guys seem to be doing better.  Lenny got in shape, Carl patented a gadget that seems to be making him rich, and Barney got his job back at the Auto Zone, so he could reunite with his mother.

Wait, Barney when sober was almost an astronaut.  And his mother works for the Navy.

Anyway, the guys by chance meet up at a Starbucks and decide to check on Moe.  He is less happy.  He’s slinging omelets.  The guys feel sorry for him and offer to go back to the tavern where Moe can serve them water.  Even the water is watered down.

But somehow, this touches that Artemis guy, and he decides to reinstate Moe into the group and offers a cure to the anti-booze.  Sure, going back means giving up all that they have gained but…oh yeah, Lenny, Carl, and Barney all say yes.  Homer…declines.

Huh.

Is this a change for…oh, wait, Artemis and Moe sent out a message to all the bartenders to give Homer the cure.  Maybe not.

Was I expecting much for a season finale?  Possibly.  This one was decent.  Be back here in the fall when the show…sigh…hits season 33.